By Robert Romano Ever since inflation first rose above 5 percent in June 2021, the Federal Reserve has kept its policy rate far below that of the inflation rate , even as it reached more than 8 percent the last two months, in order to keep a more accommodative policy stance coming out of the brief 2020 Covid recession. Even now, with […]

By Robert Romano President Joe Biden is promising to boost U.S. production of wheat to offset the loss of Ukrainian and Russian exports from the Black Sea thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has shut down the ports there, stating at a farm in Illinois on May 11 that he would extend crop insurance for […]

By Robert Romano Consumer inflation increased another 8.3 percent annualized in April, according to the latest data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) , amid increases in prices for housing, food, airline tickets and new vehicles. And it is crushing wages, with BLS reporting a 2.6 percent drop in real average hourly earnings , thanks to the inflation. Inflation has now been north of 5 percent since June 2021 , in what is […]

By Robert Romano The U.S. economy shed 353,000 jobs in April in the household survey compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This came a month after the first quarter ended with the economy contracting 1.4 percent on an inflation adjusted basis, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) . If it contracts again in the second quarter, that will be a […]

By Robert Romano “Allow me to share when we become involved in the Department of Homeland Security. We become involved when disinformation poses a threat to the security of our country. It is when there is a connectivity to a threat to our country.” That was Homeland […]

By Robert Romano The Federal Reserve on May 4 has increased its key interest rate, the Federal Funds Rate, from 0.25 to 0.5 percent, to 0.75 percent to 1 percent , a half a percentage point, and the highest rate hike since the year 2000. “With appropriate firming in the stance of monetary […]

By Robert Romano Companion pieces of legislation by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) would defund the Department of Homeland Security’s newly formed Disinformation Governance Board that was announced on April 27 by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to target what the […]

By Robert Romano No risk, no reward. That’s the lesson official Washington, D.C. should now be learning from former President Donald Trump’s foray into running a social media company, TruthSocial.com , which is currently running a successful public beta that Apple customers can download in the App Store. […]

By Robert Romano In 2018, Congress unanimously passed legislation, H.R. 3359 , that authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to disseminate information to the private sector including Big Tech social media companies in a bid to combat disinformation by potential foreign […]

By Robert Romano Well, that didn’t take long. It has only been a month since the spread between 10-year treasuries and 2-year treasuries — a reliable recession indicator that has predicted almost every recession in modern economic history — inverted on March 31. Now, here we are, and the first quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) […]

By Robert Romano “I am told this morning that Apple and Google will remove Twitter from the App Store if it does not moderate and remove hate speech under @ElonMusk. This isn’t a new policy, but a commitment already made. Amazon Web Services has the same commitment. […]

By Robert Romano “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” That was Elon Musk, the new 100 percent owner of Twitter, Inc., declaring that the social media platform will now be a free speech platform , essentially for all of humanity. […]

By Robert Romano “We are concerned about … the courts getting involved in things that are unequivocally a public health decision… This is a CDC issue, should not have been a court issue… It was perfectly logical.” That was Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) on CNN+ , contending that “public health decisions” made by […]

By Robert Romano Every year the federal, state and local governments seize about $3 billion of property via a process known as civil asset forfeiture , a perverse incentive for law enforcement officials to engage in searches in the hopes of finding something valuable to seize, knowing that that it most likely will not be challenged and recovered. Now, many states are taking action to finally end […]

By Robert Romano 30-year mortgage interest rates shot up to 5 percent on April 14 according to the latest data complied by Freddie Mac, as banks adjust to the new normal of high inflation after 8.5 percent consumer inflation and 11.2 percent producer inflation was reported in March by the Bureau of Labor Statistics the past 12 months. That was […]